The forgotten Seal
by Aeryth
Summary: Full summary inside. May contain SPOILERS. bits of summary ... Akito is screaming in his sleep... something terrible... other Gods... what the Zodiac Curse was made for... It's quite dark sometimes, be aware of that.
1. Summary

Prologue.

Akito is screaming in his sleep. Screaming for help. He claims something terrible is going to happen. He is right. Akito is one kind of God... But if one exists other Gods does too. And all the Zodiac members slowly seem to be getting weak, for unknown reason.  
What is it that's haunting Akito?  
And how does this effect the entire Zodiac?  
And what can Tohru do to help?

Noone can tell... Not even me entirely, as I make things up as I go. How, why and what the Zodiac Curse was made for is to be revealed.

I don't own the manga, anime or anything else associated to the manga, I'm a normal fan.

I have not read any more than to manga 18 so some of what I write might be incorrect. Please don't write spoilers in the reviews if you choose to review. And I might write spoilers about the 18 mangas, sorry to those who did not read those manga yet. And a few things in the manga I have already read might be ignored to make the story make better sense. also, did you not read it in the summary, I want you to be aware that it gets quite dark sometimes(I don't think it's bad, it's just Akito is main character and he's full of angst, you know)

The storyline is my own idea, and probably has nothing to do with the storyline of the manga and history of the characters. But feel free to get inspired and use similar ideas in your own fanfics, if you like.

I hope you'll enjoy as this is the first fanfic I ever made. Please review, because I think it'll help me to write more. I have a bad tendency to get distracted.

This is just the prologue. Please go on to chapter one.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 Not so major things...

_The land was all grey and barren. All the same. The ground would suddenly crack and fall apart to repair itself somewhere else. Through this land Akito was running._

_He ran with all the strength his frail body could muster. It was closing in on him. That thing... that monster, it was going to catch him. As the ground suddenly cracked next to him he fell off balance. Covered in grey dust, he took time to look back as he got up. There it was. Large, dark, frightening... It was his coming doom. He just knew... He just knew. He just knew!_

_Of course it was coming to get him. What else would it be chasing him for? Chasing him so fast that he thought he was dying from the run before the creature even got him. He couldn't take it anymore soon. He could have to stop and catch his breath. But if he stopped it would catch him in few seconds. It just wouldn't tire!_

"Go away! Go away! Leave me alone you monster!" _he shouted desperately at it. The monster just seemed to laugh at his screams._

_'Damn those stupid, useless Juunishi!' Akito cursed in his mind. He could not breathe to say it. 'Never there when I need them!' He kept running. He was about to fall from exhaustion he could feel it happening. "Leave me alone!" He shouted as loudly as he could without using all air in his weak lungs, which he knew he needed to keep running. This time there was no doubt; the monster really was laughing at him. It sounded like thunder, thousands of lightning bolts striking a thousand different places all at the same time, the laugh was everywhere. And it caused the ground to rumble. Akito fell again. This time he hardly had the strength to get back up. He looked back at the monster..._

_It was laughing much louder. And the monster had stopped. The noise was too much for Akito. He screamed at it and covered his ears as hard as he could, but still couldn't even hear his own voice. It was too loud! His ears would burst! It was laughing at his useless efforts. It was having fun trying to get him cornered! As he tried to get up again, it laughed again, even harder! The sound reached Akito like a shock-wave, knocking all air and his remaining strength out of him. The ground shook so much Akito could not have stood up even if he had had the strength. Just then the ground snapped all around him. Only one way was left to run: straight to the monster._

_It leaned in to stare into his eyes with its own unformly eyes. The entire monster was unformly. No sound other than its voice, no clear form but very visible it was, it was as frightening as Akito could find anything. Maybe it could not hear him screaming because it had to visible ears. He could not even try to hurt it for it had seemingly no physical form. How could he fight such a monster!?_

_The monster told him words; they burned their way directly into his mind, tearing it apart. "__**You... stupid 'God', you are nothing! Nothing soon enough. I shall be God, and you..!**__"_

"**HEEEELP!!** **HEELP!**"_Akito screamed with all his might for someone, anyone, to hear him. To come and rescue him. He screamed so much he could hardly breathe, it was like he was trying to scream his lungs out._

"**HEEEEEELP!!** **HEEEEELP!!**" _The monster seemed to open a mouth. How could one know what was a mouth on something with no physical form? It was going to eat him whole! Akito could no longer even lean on his arms. His head his the ground hardly. He didn't even feel pain. All there was was fear, and loneliness! He clenched his eyes shut. He could no longer look into his doom!_

"**HEEEEEEEEEELP!!**" _That was the last word he uttered before... __**BANG**_!

Akito woke up, drenched in sweat in his room... that was definitely his room, as he had always known it. He was shaking from the nightmare. Shaking so much he thought he would shatter like glass thrown to a boulder.

"Akito!" Akito turned his head towards the door... it had been broken. Kureno was bleeding from one of his shoulders. He and two maids had broken up the door, and rushed in to check on him.

"Akito-sama! What's the matt-" one of the maids was asking. But she didn't get to finish.

"**GET OUT! How dare you enter my room without permission like that! Get out!**" Akito shouted as loud as he could.

"But Akito they were-" Kureno was trying to explain that they just wanted to help, but Akito didn't want to have them in his room. No maid should be there to see him in his weak state.

"**Get out!! NOW!!**" Akito yelled. His eyes were furious. They were deadly.

"You were screaming for help! You were screaming so loud it could be heard even in Momijis house. One of the maids told me that Momiji had asked why you were screaming." Kureno knew it was dangerous to oppose Akito when he was in the state of mind that he was. But he dared not leave Akito now, thinking maybe he had a bad fever, or something much worse had happened since he screamed like that in his sleep. The maids had already hurried out. "What happened Akito? You were screaming like you were trying shatter the windows."

"It was a nightmare. A simple nightmare! Nothing major! Leave it, Kureno!" Akito shouted. He was still shaking.

"But Akito-"

"Nothing major Kureno! Just a nightmare! Leave it!" Kureno did as Akito asked, but didn't leave the room. Akito had not given him direct order to leave, and the ones he had wanted to leave earlier was the maids. After a while Akito stopped shaking. Akitos thoughts kept returning to that terrible voice '_stupid 'God', you are nothing... I shall be God soon enough..._' He could not even remember what the voice sounded like. Just the sheer terror he felt from hearing it. And the words. Terrible words.

_'What was that monster?_'

"Kureno... Find someone to fix my door, and get Hatori to look at your shoulder. And _never _break open my door again, unless I call you, even if it sounds like I'm being raped."

-A few minuttes later, in Shigures house-

Back in Shigures house, Tohru was just done cooking breakfast for everyone. She smiled gently when she put it on the table. Kyo was the first one, like always.

"Good morning Kyo-kun." She greeted cheerfully.

"Good morning." He sat down and started eating. Today the breakfast was oden.(the way I've seen it they can eat pretty much anything for breakfast) Shigure was the next one to come in.

"Good morning Shigure-san."

"Ohh, do I smell the wonderful kitchen work of my busy little house-maid?" The next second boiled leeks formed a new face on Shigures actual face. It didn't look pretty. About the leeks, Tohru purposely cut them into large pieces so Kyo could easily sort them out.

"I'm going to change to my school uniform before I eat. I hope you enjoy the breakfast, Kyo-kun, Shigure-san." Tohru said smiling, walking over to the stairs.

"Thank you, thank you Tohru, but the oranges is making is difficult to truly enjoy your little cooking masterpiece." Shigure said, picking the leeks off his face before eating them.

"Eh?" Tohru didn't remember putting in any oranges.

"He was referring to _me_, Tohru." Kyo said, having thrown more leeks at Shigure.

"Ah, ha ha ha, sorry I'm laughing, Kyo-kun. I'm just glad I didn't put in any oranges in the oden." Tohru said, then she walked up the stairs. "Good morning Yuki-kun." she said as she passed Yuki along the way. He still looked asleep. Tohru wondered if she should help him down the stairs to make sure he didn't fall. Yuki was known to have fallen asleep leaning on Kyos shoulder, and walking into walls when he was like that. He managed to get down well on his own though. the everyday life of Tohru Honda, and the Sohmas who she lived with. No apparent changes. Tohru didn't see those that there was.

"Yuki and Kyo's strangely silent today. What could be stopping their ever-going wars today?" Shigure half-sang.

"Shut up. I'm not in the mood for dealing with your stupidity today." Kyo said, Yuki didn't say a word. He just ate, without even realizing what it was he put in his mouth.

'Interesting. It's not rainy, but Kyo's behaving like it's pouring. And Yuki is unusually slow at snapping out of his tiredess today. I wonder... What could be pestering them?' Shigure thought. He was feeling fine. He could not see why they were so down. It was no fun to tease them when they were like this. How bothersome, just making his life boring like that.

-End of chapter one-

So, there we are, chapter one. I hope you enjoyed it.

Please review to help motivate me to keep writing.

I've also tried to make a larger space between lines when there is a change in place or time... It doesn't seem to work though. :( So I went for messaging the changes in these - lines.

And if anyone wants to know, my favourite Fruits Basket character is Akito.

Chapter two is will be there sometime in the future. I'm not making deadlines(I hate deadlines, they're annoying and takes away my wish to write)


	3. Chapter 2

Okay, so first, I made a change in the way I make skips in time, place and things like that. Instead of writing it, like I did in chapter one, I'll now just make some -'s.  
I'm also warning, this chapter might be a bit boring. Sorry about that. I'm also sorry I can't make up good chapter names.  
Anyway on with chapter 2 . Please enjoy.

Chapter 2: Talking of trouble

At school Tohru, Kyo and Yuki met Haru and Momiji, who could tell the same thing about this morning. Akito had been screaming like a crazy.

"...I don't know why Akito would scream for help like that, but he sounded like someone was trying to beat him really bad." Momiji said at the end of telling about Akitos screaming.

"More than that, Momiji. More like he was standing in a UFO on the tip of a cliff trying to get someone to hear the echo." Haru said. "Then he caused a snow-slide... And buried himself. The end." Kyo and Yuki stared at him. Why did he always come up with dumb things like that?

"If Akito-san was screaming, something must have been wrong. Will Akito-san be okay, you think?" Tohru asked. She was really worried. She knew that Akito caused a lot of pain, but she did not want him to suffer. Certainly not to die either.

"No one knows what happened to him. It seems it's just been a horrible nightmare, but I don't think a nightmare could get him to scream like that. If I had not known that it would only cause trouble I had ran straight over to him to help him." Momiji said, feeling a bit scared at the memory. Akitos screams had been terrible. Really _really _terrible. Haru confirmed this with by nodding with a dark expression on his face.

Tohru was wondering what could have caused Akito to scream to loudly, so badly. And she prayed in that moment. She played to whichever God there was out there that could control dreams, to never let Akito feel such fear in his dreams again.

--

"... And you're certain that you know nothing of why Akito was screaming?" Hatori asked. He was done seeing to Kurenos shoulder. The skin had been torn a little from ramming at Akitos door like that. It would be fine if Kureno kept his shoulder calm for a few days.

"He said a nightmare. Nothing major, but I honestly don't believe him. I've known Akito since he was a child, and I've only heard him scream like that once. But this time he seemed even more..." Kureno couldn't find a proper word. There was simply no wordily expression for the way Akito was screaming. Not any he knew of.

"I'm worried. Shigure called me earlier to tell me that Yuki and Kyo didn't seem well earlier today." Hatori said.

"That could be nothing." Kureno said, even though he caught the logic of it. The timing was perfect. Akito was screaming, and Yuki and Kyo was not feeling well the same morning. Kureno, of course, did not know if the rest of the Zodiac members might be feeling strange too, as his curse was broken. Hatori seemed fine. But Kureno had heard that Hatori was rather good at hiding his pain away, so he couldn't be sure.

"For now let's pay attention to anything there is to worry about. If strange things keeps happening we'll see what we can do about it." Hatori said. Kureno nodded. For now, there was nothing better they could do.

--

Tohru had felt it all day. Or more precisely, ever since she came down again after having changed to her school clothes. Yuki and Kyo seemed like something was bothering them. They had been quiet all day, not even fought once. Not even a single mean comment. Hardly even one word at breakfast. In school it had been the same. They had been doing their work both looking less interested in it than usual. At many times Tohru saw that they were actually just staring blankly at the school books. Tohrus own reason to look away from the school books had been worry. Hana-chan had even commented that their wave patters had changed somehow, in the lunch break. She was trying to determine what the changes meant. It was not something she remembered having ever sensed before. And neither of them seemed like they were listening when Haru and Momiji had told about Akito. And now again, at dinner, nothing.

Tohru was really starting to worry. Where had their liveliness gone?

"Don't worry about it, I'm just a bit tired." Yuki answered when she asked him about it later. "It's nothing to worry about, I'll just make sure to get to bed early today."

"You don't have to get all worked up over every little thing. It's normal to be a little tired once in a while." was what Kyo said when she asked him. Shigure had somehow overheard both of them.

"I wonder," Shigure commented with that playful tone that could only mean something bad. "what might you two have been doing secretly in the night, seeing how tired you are?" Next thing Shigure knew was a _reeeaallly _bad headache, which came from two _reeeaallly _angry Zodiac members, who at the same time had decided to hit him on the head _reeeaallly _hard. After that they both decided to go to bed without a word, leaving Tohru without knowing who to turn to, Yuki and Kyo, or Shigure. Kyo and Yuki might not be feeling well, and Shigure was probably not used to getting beat like that.

"Shigure-san are you okay?" She figured to turn to Shigure.

"That really hurt, you two! If you can't behave nicely I'm not letting you stay here much longer." Neither Yuki or Kyo said or did anything. "Don't worry Tohru-kun, I'll be alright."

"What about Yuki-kun and Kyo-kun? Do you think they're okay?"

"Ahhh, they're probably just tired, like they said. No need to worry. But if they are so tired, you should probably get a lot of sleep tonight too. I wouldn't want a sleepiness epidemic in my house." Tohru did go to bed early that night. And just like she had prayed for Akito earlier, now she prayed for Yuki and Kyo. She prayed for them to get well again tomorrow.

They didn't. They actually seemed even more tired. And Momiji told Tohru that Akito had been screaming again. Just as loud as yesterday.

"... I'm actually worried that even people outside might have heard him. It would be bad if they called the cops to find out why he was screaming for help in the morning. Even more if he keeps screaming." Momiji said, his cute eyes full of worry.

'What is going on?' Tohru thought. She wished to know. Tohru could easily tell from Momijis expression, when he spoke of how Akito had been screaming again today, that this was really bad. And she didn't feel well at wishing to hear him scream, just once, to understand how it sounded. She felt rather evil wanting to hear it, even for the cause of understanding. And at the same time, she felt she couldn't just stand and watch when Akito was screaming for help like that... whichever way he was actually screaming. Tohru didn't know how he was screaming since she had never heard it.

Chapter 2 end.

I hope you liked it, thanks for reading.  
Please review to my story . Might help me get more writing done.  
I'll try to put up chapter 3 soon... This one really isn't all that interresting I think. Sorry again.


	4. Chapter 3

At last, I pulled myself together and got it done. I'm so lazy, sorry about the long wait.

Anyway, enjoy ^.^

**Chapter 3 Things get worse**

"**HEEEEEEELLP!!!!**" Akitos scream pierced through the air of the main Sohma houses for the fourth morning in a row.

"**HEEELP!!**" _Cornered again. This time because a canyon had sprouted around him, once again, leaving him no other ways to go, but into the monsters grasp._

_"__**Always screaming for help, little useless 'God'. There is no help. No one will ever be able to help one who can not help themselves!**__" That voice burning into his mind like that._

"Go away! LEAVE ME! **Monster, LEAVE ME!!**" _Akito had been screaming all sorts of different forms of 'go away' in the last four times he had met the monster, still without form or figure, still without actual voice, still without name._

It always pained Kureno to obey Akitos last order to him; don't enter my room, unless I call directly for you. No matter what else I say. It pained everyone in the main Sohma household. They could all hear his screams. They could all hear it so clearly. But they couldn't do anything. Not without disobeying Akito, which could result badly.

"**HEEEELP!!!**" _The eyes was burning him. Akito did not look into the monsters eyes, but he knew it was burning him with its glare._

_"__**You fool! Keep screaming! Keep despairing! You'll only sink deeper, further **_**away**_**... You will keep having forgotten!**__"_

_"Forgotten..?" Not till now did Akito dare open his eyes... Where had his sight gone?_

_"__**And yours shall be mine!**__" This was it, the monster was eating him again!_

"**HEEEEEEEEEELP!!!!!**" And Akito woke up again. It was always like this. The monster ate him, his scream would be as loud and piercing as it could possibly be. And then he woke up. Always like that. And today, like always, did Akito wake up, drenched in sweat of fear, shaking of terror and almost crying of desperation. Just like always, he fought the tears from surfacing. He couldn't be crying if someone decided to disobey him, and go into his room, before he had calmed down.

Akito heard the whisper of a maid standing outside his room. "At last he's quiet again..." How long had he been screaming? Even more, the way she spoke... Did she really not care that he was screaming? Probably not! None of them ever cared for him, or what pain he might be facing! They would only be happy if he were to disappear, so they could have peace from him. Freedom to come on to his Juunishi if they wanted. And the Juunishi would ignore that he was gone too, doing what the heck they wanted, feeling free at last!

The thoughts was unbearable. And they were so true. No Juunishi had ever told him directly, but he knew somewhere inside that they were so true! Akito clenched his fists so much it hurt. Just standing there alone in his room, seemed all they ever liked that he did.

"_**WRraahahahaa!**_" The sound of the monsters laugh, even now when he was not sleeping, hit Akito like a waterfall of despair. With the laugh the noise... He did not hear it, but the memory of the thunder was more than plenty to seem real. He fell to the floor, for the first time unable to hold back the tears. The monster laugh was haunting him, even now! Awake! Damn it... damn it..!

"**You monster, DAMN YOU!**"

---

Even Shigures worst of attempt had not helped... Nothing Tohru had said could get either Yuki or Kyo to tell what was going on... Six days, and neither of them had gotten any better. All they would say was they were 'tired'. Tohru had even told them not to worry about worrying her, it would be much better if they simply told her what was bothering them... without any different response. It had been weekend, so it was even more of a wonder that they couldn't get enough rest.

In school Momiji and Haru had told Tohru that Akito kept screaming in the morning. Always screaming for help. Haru had commented that Akito was the new rooster in the morning. His screaming woke up everyone. At first Tohru had taken it too seriously, and thought Akito had become the Rooster of the Zodiac, but Momiji quickly got that thought out of her head again.

Sunday Kisa and Hiro had come by to play. They could tell Tohru that in the weekend Akito had been screaming too. As well as Haru didn't seem to be feeling well either.

In school monday, Momiji confirmed that Haru was not feeling well. He did not come to school because he felt bad, and didn't want to risk transforming in school. Also that Akito still screamed every morning.

"Have you gotten any idea why Yuki-kun, Kyo-kun and Haru-kun aren't feeling well through this weekend Momiji-kun? Or why Akito-san is screaming like that?" Tohru asked full of worry.

"No. I'm trying to find out what is happening, but I haven't found out anything. I'm sorry Tohru. No one seems to know anything." Tohru was starting to feel like there might be something going on within the Zodiac. Something that maybe only Akito knew what was. Or maybe not even him. She really wanted to see him, and ask him about it, but he had never seemed like he'd share any more knowledge of the Zodiac with her, than that he was God.

'I don't think I should ask him about it. Maybe Shishou-san knows something about it...' Not likely, Tohru knew that, but still he was the first person she could think of, who she hadn't already asked, who might be able to help and would want to help her.

---

"Kureno, forget it, I tell you!" Akito shouted to get Kureno to stop asking Akito about what was causing him to scream. He had screamed for 6 mornings straight. He still denied to talk about it.

"I still think you should at least talk to Hatori about it. He might-"

"Hatori's no phycologist! ... And I don't _need _a psychologist! I don't want to see him! Forget it Kureno!" Kureno didn't say another word. He didn't know what to say. Akito thought he might have scared Kureno a bit, but it was better than having to be reminded of that _terrible _dream.

When Akito spoke again he had calmed. "Kureno. I hear that people of the Zodiac are getting weak for unknown reasons. Is it true?"

"Yes it is. First it was Yuki and Kyo,"

"Stupid monster." Akito murmered darkly.

"Next it was Haru and just this morning, Kisa. It seems to go with where in the Zodiac they are, with about 3 days between them."

Since Kureno didn't add any more Akito thought that was all of them for now. "They follow the line of the Zodiac..." But why did the Cat get weak at the same time as Yuki? He should have been last one to get sick, then. "Kureno I want the Zodiac to gather. I want to find out what they might know about all this. The Cat, of course will not be coming. I wouldn't want that monster ruining everything."

---

"Tohru-kun, where are you going? You don't have work today, do you?" Yuki asked Tohru when she changed direction on the way home.

"No, I um, I'm seeing Hana-chan and Uo-chan today, so I thought I'd get some biscuits for us." Tohru said. "Don't worry, I'll be back in time to make dinner."

"Okay, see you at home."

"See you!" Tohru waved as she walked away. She did go get biscuits... But she didn't go to see Hana-chan and Uo-chan. She knew it was rude to drop in unannounced, but she thought it was best to try and find out what happening as fast as possible. A few healthy biscuits in her bag, and she was on her way to Shishous home.

"Well hello, Tohru-san. What a pleasant surprise."

"Good day Shishou-san. I'm sorry to come by without a warning." Tohru bowed politely as part of her apology.

"No worries Tohru-san, you're welcome to visit at almost any time." Tohru followed Shishou inside.

"Thank you. Here, I brought some biscuits for us. Healthy low-fat biscuits, is that okay?" Tohru said holding out the biscuits.

"Yes, thank you." They got seated around a table, with the biscuits in a little bowl. "Now, I don't suppose you came here just for a friendly visit. Maybe you're here to tell me why Kyo-kun hasn't come for his training in a while?"

"Uhm, something like that. I was hoping actually, that you could help me find out what's going on. You see, Haru-kun, Kyo-kun and Yuki-kun all seem to be not feeling well. It's six days since Yuki-kun and Kyo-kun began feeling tired. Haru-kun wasn't at school 3 days later. Apparently he felt bad too. Momiji-kun also told me that Akito-san has started to scream for help every morning. I want to know why all this is happening, and I thought maybe you knew something." For a few seconds Shishou didn't say anything.

"I heard about that too. I wonder what's going on too. I'm sorry Tohru-san but I can't tell you something you don't already know. This is a Zodiac thing, that much is certain to me though." Tohru nodded. She had thought of the same thing. "I'm really sorry Tohru-san, but all you just told me was little more than I already had heard of."

"Alright, thanks anyway. I'm happy you would help me if you could. Thank you."

"No, thank you for telling me what you know. I'm glad to find that you trust me. Also I will do my best to see if I can find out what's going on. I know you don't want me to burden myself, but I want to help."

"Yes... I understand. Thank you very much. I too, will work my hardest to find out what I can do to help." Having no more to say about the strange tiredness, they had a friendly chit-chat, before Tohru headed home.

---

"Huh? Tohru, what are you doing here?" Hiro. Tohru turned to see that Hiro had been walking by the street she had too.

"Hello, Hiro-san. What a coincidence. I was just out for a walk." Tohru smiled.

"Maybe you should have changed clothes at home before you took your walk. It's unusual to see someone wearing school uniform at this time."

"Hehe, maybe I should have... How's your little sister?"

"She's fine. Mother is taking well care of Hinata. But I want to tell you something different. Kisa hasn't been feeling well today. She might have a caught a lesser fever or something, but it doesn't seem like it. I just didn't want you to worry if you don't get to see her in the weekend. ... Huh? Why are you making a face like that? Is something wrong?"

"Now Kisa-chan... her too..." Tohru mumbled.

"What do you mean 'too'? What are you talking about? Is something wrong?" Hiro asked worried for Kisa.

"Well it's just... She's been tired and not feeling well, right?"

"Yes."

"Well... first it was Kyo-kun and Yuki-kun. Then Haru-kun felt bad. And now Kisa-chan. And it all started when Akito was screaming for help."

"I've heard Akito screaming, but not about that illness... You say it was Yuki, Kyo and then Haru, and now Kisa? That follows the line of the Zodiac, if we consider the Cat to be on the same place as the Rat. The Cat does not have any actual place within the Zodiac, so Kyo might as well me on the same place as Yuki as anywhere else..."

"You're right. So... Momiji-kun will be next. Then it'll be Hatori-san, followed by Ayame-san. And so on until Kagura-san in the end is feeling unwell too... But what is this? And what will happen afterward?" Tohru felt so worried for them all, she was almost crying where she stood.

"I don't know. I don't even know what's going on! Do you really think all this will happen, Tohru?"

"Yes Hiro-san. I'm afraid that it will."

**-Chapter three end-**

There, chapter three. Thanks for reading. Please review.

Reviews will be welcome. Chapter four will come sometime in the future.


	5. Chapter 4

At last here is chapter four. I've taken way too long. I have reasons, but they're stupid, and I don't want to go into details wich in the end just leads back to my laziness. On the other hand this whole chapter took only 2 days to complete(short time for me, and I even wrote more words in this chapter then in chapter 3).

Heihachi-Katayama: 'This looks interesting...' Thanks! I try my best. Also it was great to get a review, thanks ^.^

Anyway please enjoy this chapter which I wrote listening to dark music to help get the right feeling into the writing.

**Chapter four The terrible everynight.**

_3 am. How annoying._ Akito turned again, trying to calm himself enough to sleep. _That monster is ruining my sleep_. It really haunted Akito, no matter what time of the day it was, Akito would see it, hear it while no one else could. How long was that thing going to make him suffer like that? What was with that thing? Couldn't it bother someone less important? Anyone who wasn't a God.

Akito growled with frustration, and tried to put his head in a more comfortable position on the pillow. Two seconds after that he turned in the other direction; the pillow was colder there. For some reason he just wanted to rest his head on the cold side of the pillow. He was so tired. He closed his eyes again and tried to go to sleep. The monster would haunt him when he slept again, he knew, but still he needed his sleep.

With the monster haunting his thoughts now, and one of his eyes just not wanting to stay closed, but kept half-opening again, Akito grew even more annoyed. One moment later that was replaced by a feeling of hopelessness. Not an unfamiliar feeling to Akito.

No one would leave him to think about anything else than the monster. Everyone always asked him about his screaming, so he could not get it out of his head outside his room. When he was alone in his room, he would see something that reminded him of waking up screaming, his mind would trace back to the nightmares, back to the monster. It was like everything was trying to make it haunt him. All those stupid maids, all the non-Zodiac Sohmas... all of them! All of _this_! He hated it all. All of this. All these changes that had happened in one week, he hated it all!

Akitos eyes flew open. His tiredness had disappeared, replaced with fear. He had heard it again. The laughter. That terrible rumbling laughter, burning in every bit of his mind. It was already gone, but even that one short moment made him feel sick with fear. And a terrible feeling went into his mind. It felt as though whatever was going on, would end in something terrible. He knew it was something going to be terrible. Whatever was happening, it was going to be terrible. _Worse_! Worse than things were now... How much worse could it get?!?

This feeling made him restless. He had to do _something _to distract himself. _Anything _that would make him forget, even for a moment, about the monster haunting him constantly. He decided to walk over and look out the window. It had been one week since his first scream for help. Only one week. It seemed like an eternity. So much seemed to have changed to him in that short time. He couldn't find peace anywhere anymore, especially not in his sleep. That monsters influence on his life felt like it was killing him. And he couldn't look for help anywhere, no one could help him. No one! He was so alone in this.

Akito sunk to the floor when he heard that laugh again. The monsters terrible words filled his mind again.

"_**Foolish, foolish 'God'. Useless, worthless, helpless! No one needs a helpless 'God' like you are!**_" Terrified, Akito did his best to wake up again. He was not yet asleep, and he fought with all his might to avoid sleeping. He did not want to go into the nightmares again, back to the monster, and it's terrible words. The monster was laughing at him again. Akito felt, even though his heart was beating quickly of fear, that his mind was being forced to sleep, completely out of his control. The monster was laughing again, and again at his useless effort to stay awake, and away from the monster.

"_**It's useless! You are nothing! You can't do anything against me, so powerful! I have power! You are nothing! No more than a pathetic excuse for a 'God'! Useless, useless, weak being, who knows not even how to care for itself! No one will ever need you! You should not even exist!**_"

A silent whisper, "Help…" was all he managed to utter before, once again, he was in the horrible barren unmistakable place.

_He could hear the echo of the monsters laughter. Deciding to get as far away from that terrible being, and all about it, he ran in the opposite direction of where he heard the laughter as fast as he could._

_After what felt like hours of running, and navigating between the cracks in the ground, with the laughter and the rumbling sound he knew was the monster closing in on him, constantly echoing, which was the only reason Akito could bring himself to keep up for so long, Akito finally stopped. He simply couldn't run any longer. He quickly looked around found a small, but deep crack in the ground to hide in. He closed his eyes and ears tightly, and begged for someone, anyone, to make sure the monster did not find him there. He hoped that with his eyes and ears shut like that, he would not be aware of when the monster would come to find him._

_But closing eyes and ears doesn't help much in the world of dreams, and the monsters appearance was as clear as it had always been, as clear as it could ever be for a being with seemingly no physical form, actual voice, or anything that could make it real. Akito could feel it staring at him, and couldn't help staring right back up at it._

"_**Wrraaahahaa-HahaHAA!**_" _It laughed again, almost hysterically this time. Akito hardly took notice of that; The ground underneath him crumbled as the laughter grew louder. He screamed he fell into the gap that had so suddenly appeared underneath him._

"_**You really are too pathetic. It's almost an eyesore, even for me, seeing how far you have fallen!**_" _Akito landed roughly on the rocky ground that was the bottom of the gap he had fallen into. He could see no way out. There was not even the small cave in the walls surrounding the gap, hardly any cracks, nothing that could even hide a rat. In his panic he ran to the side of the gap, and started scratching the walls in a desperate attempt to get up, and run away from the monster. He just had to run, to get out of there! Get away before it began talking again, spewing it's horrible words at him. He was bound to fail, the way up was way too steep._

"_**Give it up, you! Give up! Be hopeless! No one will help you! Never, never will anyone come to your help. No one can! And even if they could no one would! You're all on your own, and you can't even help you self!**_" _Akito sunk to the ground, covering his ears, desperate to stop the loud voice which he could not even find a sound for, always hearing the words, but not an actual sound, hardly real! But still too real! Hardly real and too real at once!_

"No! Leave me alone! Leave me alone!!! Shut up, leave me alone!!! LEAVE ME ALONE!!! YOU MONSTER!!! LEAVE ME ALONE!!!"

"_**You will not escape me! You can't get away from me! I shall take away all you have, for you can not hope to get away from me! There is no escape, not for you, not for your Zodiac!**__"_

"_The Zodiac? What are you going to do to my Zodiac?!?" Akito question was responded my the laughter again._

"_**I will let no one escape my wrath! No one will miss my power! No one anywhere, least of all, you pathetic 'God' and your incomplete Zodiac! You shall all suffer!**__" As the monster spoke, Akito saw something hovering above the gap, above the monster. He could not make out what it was, it was unformly, just like the monster. It was just like the monster. Another monster! He screamed._

"**HEEELLP!**" _The small part of Akito that had dared hope that this other being might help him, regretted even daring to hope, when he saw what he was sure was a mad smile appear on whatever was the face of that being, also impossible to make any sense of. The larger monster laughed again. With the laugh Akito coughed, as all air was blown out of by the impact that laugh always made. As soon as he had caught his breath again, he began screaming again. Helplessly cornered by the monster all he could do was to scream for help again._

_Akito kept screaming and screaming even as the monster spoke again. "__**As soon as you find something troubling you scream instantly! A person so useless, you can't do a thing for you self! Nothing! A person who can't fight for themselves is useless, even more a 'God'! You will never be worth anything! I shall end you, stupid 'God'! I shall end you, and take away yours! It shall be mine! You shall have nothing, for a worthless 'God', unneeded, useless, helpless, a 'God' like that deserves nothing!**__"_

"**NOOO!!! HEEEEELP!!!**" _He was being devoured again! The monster was devouring him again!_ "**HEEEEELLP!!!**" Bonk! "Oww…" Akito had suddenly woken up, gotten up just as sudden, and hurt his head. It took him a while to realize that he was back in his room again, and what had hurt him; he had fallen asleep… no forced to sleep, under the window. And getting up go quickly, that's how he had hurt his head.

He stumbled over to his bed again, falling into it, digging his fingers into the blanket, still shivering badly. The monster was becoming worse and worse, forcing him to listen to him more; it was when it ate him he woke up every time, and when it didn't eat him that meant more playtime for it. But it had never forced him to sleep before.

Akito curled up to a ball. He could feel inside that this monster would only keep becoming worse and worse. It was already proving to be a horrible being, forcing its way to Akitos mind like that. It was like it was influencing his every thought by now. And Akito began thinking about what it has told him.

"I can't deny… I really can't help myself. If only I could do with help from myself. I really need help from everywhere. And no one needs me! Who could need me?" Akitos started crying as whispered those terrible truths. The monster was right about many things… which meant is would probably be right about taking everything away from him. It had said it would make his Zodiac suffer… Was it really hurting his Zodiac too? Akito couldn't even take care of himself, how could he keep the monster from tearing his Zodiac apart like it was tearing him apart? If it did that to his Zodiac… maybe it would break the Zodiac, leaving Akito nothing to be 'God' over. Without the Zodiac there is no God. If it did that indeed, like it said it would be… Akitos end. His end!

Suddenly Akitos fear mixed with his frail health, which had worsened due to the very little amount of sleep he had had the past week. He bend over the side of the bed as what remains of food he had in his gut ended up on the floor. When Akitos body finally relaxed, he laid back on the bed, completely exhausted. He felt so aware of what a hopeless situation he was in, even though he still had no idea what was going on. He felt like everything was going to end soon.

* * *

"_**I would never have guessed that it would indeed be so weak. I knew it was weak, but this is far better than expected!**_"

"Indeed. Too bad Zodiac is not as weak as their God. Can I really do nothing to speed up the process?"

"_**No! You can do nothing! They are falling under my power, they will soon all have fallen under it! Patience**_!"

"As you wish. I never had imagined that it would be so easy to do this. They really did forget everything in the last few centuries. Oh, it'll be so much fun to tear them apart."

"I_**t will. It will all be much fun. When I'm done with that weak, useless pathetic excuse for a 'God', when I finally have what I want, I shall start a new era! It'll be my paradise!**_"

-Chapter four end-

Yay! I've learned how to make horizontal lines XD

well, there we are, chapter four. I hope you liked it. Thanks for reading ^.^

Please review. I'm sure I'll stay more motivated if you do. Feel free to take a guess at what they're talking about in the last lines.

Chapter five will be coming up sometime. No idea when. I just hope it'll take as long as this chapter did.


	6. Chapter 5

Once agin I've taken too long at updating this, and this chapter is even quite short. I'm pretty hopeless at this, or well, I feel like I'm hopeless, but at least I think my writing could be much worse.

Oh, well, please enjoy the fifth chapter ^.^ I hope you'll like it.

Heihachi-Katayama; Yeah, thanks for reviewing again. Nice review by the way, makes me happy ^.^

**Chapter five Growing suspicions**

"This is Shigure Sohma, hello?" Shigure picked up the phone the afternoon after Tohru had talked with Hiro about the illness in the Sohma family. She was at that time cooking, but still heard some of what Shigure said. "My, does he? Why might he want that? … I see. Yes. Of course I'll be there. I'll make sure Yuki comes along too, don't worry about that. We wouldn't want Akito getting angry, he ought to be in quite a bad temper these days if one is to believe the rumors."

By then the conversation caught Tohrus attention. She considered listening but instantly felt bad for considering eavesdropping like that. That wouldn't have been good. All while thinking like that Shigure finished the talk.

Tohru just thoughtfully stood there wondering what that was about. Her mind traced back to what Momiji had told her earlier today in school. Akito has thrown up this morning. This had gotten her to think of that maybe he was having some kind of fever. But it seemed he also denied letting Hatori see to what it was that bothered him.

'_If he's fevering he would need someone to see to it. If he denies to let Hatori-san look at, there's no way he'd let anyone see to what it might be before it had gone really bad. And it already seems very bad as it is. I wonder if…_'

"How much water do you need?" Kyo, who had come by to look at what she was cooking, suddenly commented, waking Tohru from her thought stream. The water was running over the edges of the pot.

"Waaah!" Tohru instantly stopped the water. "That was… Uhm, I… I'm sorry I wasted so much water, I… I was lost in thought!" She hastily explained.

"Yeah I know, that's why I woke you up." Kyo said, seeming worn out, like he had done for a week and one day.

"How are you feeling?" Tohru asked worried.

"No different." He answered.

"Okay…" Not the answer she had hoped for, but still the one she expected. When Kyo had gone out of the kitchen again after a little talking, Tohru lowered her eyes, making a face of very clear worry. She was worried for all of them; Yuki, Kyo, everyone in the Zodiac, and Akito too.

Later at dinner, Shigure announced that Akito had called for the Zodiac to meet this weekend.

"Why would he do that?" Yuki asked, seemingly not wanting to have to go back to the main house more than once a year.

"Kureno said he didn't say the reason. But I'm sure there is something. He also said that Akito absolutely _insisted_ everyone from the Zodiac shows up. We'll find out when we're there, Yuki." Shigure said and then turned to Tohru. "I feel sorry for having to leave you alone with that thing alone for a day, Tohru-kun." Kyo snapped his chopsticks in annoyance. "So, for the sake of your comfort, I'll lock him out of the house for the weekend."

"Eeehh?!? That's not-" Tohru stopped because she couldn't see Shigures face anymore; it had been covered by Kyos plate. Kyo stood up and left the room, seemingly angry, but he wasn't exactly radiating the anger like he usually did. Another sign of the illness.

"Kyo-kun-" Once again Tohru cut herself off, this time because Shigure, having put the plate back on the table, shouted at Kyo.

"You're going to have to clean that mess yourself, you know! We really can't expect poor Tohru-kun to clean up all the mess you do. The poor girl would never rest if she had to." Kyo was out of hearing range.

* * *

The next day it turned out Tohru and Hiros assumption about the disease had been right; Momiji lost most of his lively self. Almost the entire school noticed. And rumors were starting at the school, about what might be happening with all the Sohma.

The one that seemed to appear mostly was of course the one easiest for everyone to understand; some kind of disease was in the family.

"You shouldn't stay around them if they're all getting sick like that. There's no way I'm seeing you in that kind of danger." Uo-chan complained during break the next day.

"Indeed. Whatever is causing them to change their wave pattern might get to you too." Hana-chan agreed.

"But… But I…" Tohru just didn't have any words she could use in this situation.

"No buts Tohru! We're talking about your safety! That means no excuses!"

"Uo-chan, Hana-chan I have to stay there, if they all end up getting sick someone will have to take care of them. And I… I just think it's best that I do it, because they know me."

"Stop worrying for them, and care for yourself for once! The last thing we'll need is our dear Tohru to grow weak like they have."

"I agree. I'm also worried about their waves… I always knew they had strange, almost inhuman waved, but they were still good waves. Whatever has happened to their waves doesn't feel like it's up to any good."

"Eh? What do you mean by that Hanajima?" Uo-chan turned to Hana-chan with a confused expression on her face.

"I've never felt anything like this before… it's as if another persons waves is…" Hana-chan paused to consider how to best express it. "surrounding and holding down their normal waves. But whoever is doing this, is doing this on purpose… I wonder, how could anything human have a power like that?"

'_Look who's talking!_' Some random bypassing high school girl thought, having heard only the last bit of what Hanajima had said. '_You're in no position to say such things! If anyone's not human around here it's you!_'

Hana-chan turned to her saying; "If I scare you, why do you keep staring at me?" At this point she sprinted away.

* * *

The teacher Mayuko Shiraki put her cell phone back into her pocket, having just finished a talk with Hatori. She had asked him about what was bothering the Sohmas. At first he had seemed confused about that she knew something wasn't right about them, but then again, four boys from the same family, going to the same school, and getting ill at almost the same time doesn't really seem like a coincidence, so in fact it wasn't so surprising.

He had answered that he didn't truly know what was happening, but he was working on it, and she shouldn't worry about it. The way he had answered had, made her a bit worried. Being somewhat a friend of Hatori she knew what he was like, and had realized that he had pushed the subject away. She hadn't pushed to get more about it out of him, even thought she had been quite tempted.

'_Could this be something bad? ….. No, no reason to get paranoid, probably just a minor virus or something, Hatori-kun should be able to take care of it._'

* * *

"We're going to get going now, Tohru-kun." Yuki said when he and Shigure was ready to go to the main house.

"I'll see you when you come back. Take care." Tohru stood at the door.

"You too." After they had gone, Tohru turned back to doing laundry. It had been four days since Momiji too had started feeling bad. In that time, Hatori too had been effected by whatever it was. Tohru sighed. Ayame would defiantly be next; she was not in doubt of that anymore.

That things weren't right with the Sohma was too obvious by now. Yesterday Yuki, Kyo, and Momiji was told by a teacher at the school that if they weren't feeling well, they could take time off for as long as it would take before they felt well again. All three of them denied taking time off, unless they began feeling worse, that is. Tohru thoughts that they should rest and try to get better, but at the same time, there was no way of knowing how long that would last, and they had to keep up their grades as well as they could still. Of course it was a part of keeping people from finding out that their family was special in more ways than just having many gorgeous members, with unusual hair and eye coloring. This was a very difficult situation.

* * *

"How many have come by now?" Akito asked Hatori who had been there for a while.

"We're still missing Yuki, Shigure, Kagura and Rin. Everyone else is here." Akito just made a displeased sound in response.

He felt hesitant as to whether he should show up himself. He wanted to be around him Juunishi, but if the monster tried to get to him mind while he was in there, he would not be able to get away unnoticed. If they began talking about the 'illness', he would react in some way. It would all lead back to his memories of the nightmares. The monster. And of course they would talk about the illness. What else would they talk about? After all it was what he wanted them to gather for.

Someone knocked the door, before entering the room Akito and Hatori was in. Kureno.

"Shigure and Yuki have come now. Rin and Kagura are also here soon." He announced. Akito made a gesture to tell Kureno he'd heard him, and stood up. The three of them walked over to the room where they would all be meeting together.

'_I really do hope any of them has even some idea of what all this is. I'm as clueless as a worm on a hook._' Akito thought to himself.

End of chapter five.

Indeed Akito feels like a worm on a hook. He's clueless as to what is going on, but he knows he's in trouble, and feels like things are only going to get worse, like when the fish swallows the worm. That's why he thinks of himself like that.

Did you like this one? for some reason i feel like it's not quite as good as my previous writing. I really hope I'll improve in the following chapters. If anything I hope to improve in my own opinion.

Now please review. ^.^ Reviews make me happy. And I believe they keep me motivated on writing.


	7. Chapter 6

Hi again, here's chapter six ^.^

First of all I want to say No, the genre is not misleading. This will turn into an Adventure/Supernatural genre story. But honestly it should have about 5 genres to fill out everything.

Hope you'll enjoy this chapter.

I'll appreciate reviews, thank you ^.^ (Thanks Heihachi-Katayama for reviewing again.)

**Chapter six Confession**

Akito stared into the room where all his Juunishi were from a tiny opening in the door. He was alone out there. Somehow he knew he should be in there too. But at the same time, he felt like he shouldn't. The Zodiac, the people he loved, those he was bound to was all in there. All his Juunishi, who he wanted to be always be around. But still he couldn't make himself walk in there. He could hear what they said from where he was, even if not clearly, He'd still hear if they found out anything about this strange condition about half of them were in. There was in fact no good reason to not walk in there…

Only _fear_.

The fear of hearing the monster again while in there. The monster which had started talking to him too when he was awake. Then force him back into the nightmares. It had done that a number of times recently. That monster…

Akito covered a part of his face in his hand and walked a little away from the door. He was feeling awful. He had earlier been feeling the same way, and used it as an excuse to send Shigure, Hatori and Kureno into the room without him. He had stopped and sat down where he was, hoping to feel better. And he did get to feel better, all while speculating what the Zodiac might be talking about. Thinking about poor Yuki, completely unable to defend himself from Ayames brotherly love had almost made him want to laugh. Ayame going crazy over his little brother, while Yuki was weak made a hilarious mental image. Almost as hilarious as Kyo in the same situation, only Kagura replacing Ayame.

Standing by himself, lightly shivering and fists clenched, Akito hoped no one would pass by. Right now, he really wanted nothing. He really wanted for there to be nothing, for just a few seconds. No chest-clenching, strangling fear, no sense of loneliness, helplessness, or anything. He really wanted nothing for just a while.

Akito snapped out of his thoughts at a sound that turned out to be someone closing the door Akito had been staring in at. Of course. No one would want to have him around, would they? Of course not! So far the more reason to stay away from them. Far away.

'_I don't belong in there. Not one of them truly care for me after all. None of them are truly friends to me._' He clenched his fists harder. '_They all hate me! They probably can't even stand to look at me!_' His hands would hurt if Akito had payed any attention to them. '_They loathe me, don't they? Just like everything else does! I can't stand it! I… love them… They're all I have… I'm really nothing without them! No God! Nothing! I'll be nothing without my Juunishi! They´re all I have and they hate me! What… What can I do?!?_' Akitos mind was screaming.

* * *

Kureno, who had discreetly closed the door Akito was peeking through earlier, was now listening to how they all talked about different things they knew about the illness in the Zodiac. He had closed the door earlier for Akitos sake. He knew Akito would not want anyone seeing him, and then asking him to join them in there right now. It was obvious that Akito was not feeling well, otherwise he would have been in there with them.

"… if anyone knows anything it's probably Akito." Hiro added to the conversation.

"Speaking of Akito, won't he be joining us?" Ritsu asked shyly, not hoping to drop the mood too much.

"He was about to, but along the way here he appears to have gotten suddenly sick. Quite the coincidence, isn't it?" Shigure, having had a good bit of fun watching Yuki and Ayame earlier, said. Ayame had gone crazy Yuki being unwell, saying in his normal very loud way of talking, that his glorious brotherly love would work better than any medicine ever could, promising to cling to Yuki until he felt better. Yukis many failed attempts at getting Ayame away from him had been quite impressive given his weakened state. He had also noticed Akito peeking in through the door earlier. When he had gone away Kureno closed the door soon after. "Well I think I'll go see to that he hasn't collapsed on the floor. Anyone want to come along?" Only Hatori followed Shigure.

* * *

Shigure and Hatori found Akito standing by himself just a short way from the room they were all in. When Shigure spoke to him, he flinched like he's been struck and spun around. In the instant Hatori and Shigure saw his face they were both quite shocked to find Akitos face to be showing utter and complete terror. His face quickly changed to one if contained anger; a face everyone had seen him have many times.

Shigure decided to ignore his moment of shock saying, "I'm glad to see you're feeling well enough to stand and walk." Is if simply to deny this Akito sat back on the floor, leaning against the wall while glaring at Shigure.

"What are you two doing out here?" His voice was tense, as if he was on the verge of raging.

"Well, we simply came to see to how you were doing." Shigure said.

"Go back in there."

"Akito," Hatori said carefully, knowing that Akito was unstable in this moment. "we're waiting for to come in too. So-"

"No you're not! You didn't wait for me! As soon as I was there you were all chattering away! That's not 'waiting for me'!"

"You can't expect 12 people who know each other in the same room to just sit and wait silently for the only missing person." Shigure commented.

"Shut up!" No, the tension in Akitos voice was not anger. It was more like an attempt at hiding something, which was starting to fail.

"The conversation is going nowhere. We're speaking the same few things over and over. The only one who might know more than any of us about this is you Akito." Akito didn't make any response. He was just sitting silently, visibly tensing. All this was too much for him. Several long seconds passed where he tensed more and more, to the point of shivering badly. His face seemed to change between fury and fear uncontrollably.

"Akito..?" Hatori asked. Akitos eyes turned to him for a second. Akito then turned his face away, shutting his eyes tightly, seemingly fighting something in his mind. His breathing was becoming all too audible too... Even his breathing seemed to shiver badly.

"Akito, what is happening to you?" Shigure asked, unusually serious. Akito opened his eyes again, staring frightfully at the man who was the Dog of the Zodiac. Then his gaze turned to the Dragon. Then back to the wall. His mind was racing. So much was clear. At the same time, Akito could not feel his thoughts moving. His mind was racing, but he could barely feel his thoughts moving underneath all his fear. But one thing did he realize above all this; he couldn't take this anymore! He had to _do something_ about it _now_!

Akito stood up and began walking away. "Akito!" Shigure, or Hatori, Akito didn't care who had called out for him.

"Come..!" Akito told both of them. He took a short walk, leading them into a room he knew would be empty; the Cats room. No one would be around here. Akito closed the door when Shigure and Hatori was there too. He would have locked it if it could be locked from the inside.

"Listen… I... You'll probably think I'm turning mad when I tell you this…" Hatori and Shigure was starting to get a bit nervous about what Akito wanted to tell them. "I'll tell you… I'll tell you why I'm screaming. It's… horrible!"

Akitos voice shivered almost as badly as the rest of him as he spoke. "There's a monster… it's haunting me in my dreams. It won't leave me alone. It's such a horrible being! It's always… It's killing me! It chases me… Whenever I sleep I'm being chased by it. It speaks such… horrible words." At the memory of all the words, all those terrible things this monster had said, flew into a panic. He couldn't help it, the memories was crashing what remained of control over his emotions he had. "I can't take it! It won't leave me alone! I've been screaming and crying, but it laughs! It always laughs! That laughter… It's terrible! When it laughs everything just… It's like earthquakes and thunderstorms at once, everything breaks! It's trapping me! I can't-"

"Akito." Shigure grabbed one of Akitos wrists to calm him. It worked just enough to make him snap a bit out of his panic. "Calm down. Try to tell us again, _calmly_, ok?"

"Weren't you just listening to me?" Akito shouted, tears staring to draw wet, shiny lines on his cheeks.

"Yes I heard you. I heard every word you said, but it'll be much easier to understand if you try to calm down, and tell us slowly, alright?"

"There's nothing to be calm about with that monster haunting me like that! It's trying to kill me… all of _us_!" Akito pulled his wrist to himself again.

"What kind of monster is it? The Cat?"

"The Cat could never… I don't know what kind of monster it is! It's a monster, that's all I know! It's such a horrible being! I don't know… It's like I know it's there, but I have no idea what it looks or sounds like. I've seen it for 12 nights in a row, but... It's unformly, nothing! It doesn't have any form..." Akito sat down on the floor trying to stay calm as the memories of the monster washed over him like an ice-cold black river of nightmares. He did not bother trying to stop the tears streaming down his cheeks. As long as he didn't panic again, like he had moments ago.

"Do you remember anything about it?" Shigure was not just curious… Akito clearly feared this being like it was death itself stalking him. Akito might fear the monster less if he told someone about it. Shigure was personally impressed that Akito had found the courage to tell him and Hatori now, after 12 mornings of waking up screaming.

"It's… hardly. The voice, I can't really remember what it sounded like, only it's… rumbling. Loud, way too loud, it's like it's roaring at directly into my mind when I hear it. I can't even think when I hear it, so loud is it! And it's..." Akito started thinking very hard, attempting to get any image of the monster to explain. "It's dark... I don't know really know, maybe like dark mist. I... I can't stop feeling that something terrible is going to happen. Soon. Very soon, maybe, I don't know when, but it'll reach all of us. Me, and the Zodiac. That monster… I think that is what weakening you… it has said it'll harm all of us, bring us to an end. It said it'll take away all that's mine. It's trying to do something terrible to us!"

Shigure got down and held the crying God sitting on the floor curled up to a ball. Akito really needed support now. Something he could not put his finger on, something that wouldn't hear anything he said was haunting him. Such a thing was about as terrifying as Akito could ever feel anything to be.

"Shigure... Hatori... Help..! Please help me..!" he pleaded. He was about to wrap his arms around Shigure for his support, when the very thing to he had told his two most trusted Juunishi whispered in his mind again.

"_**Tell yourself again, that these are not truly your friends.**_"

The sudden change in Akitos face expression almost scared Hatori and Shigure. His face was one of absolute horror. He had stopped shaking earlier, but but he began again, much worse now. He closed his eyes shut, and grabbed his head, his face tense as if he was enduring a sudden extreme headache.

"_**They won't help you, you know that well. They'll laugh at you, being so pathetic. You're too pathetic, no one will ever want to help you! You're too helpless!**_"

"_Get out of my head! Get out of my head!!!_" Akito practically shrieked. Surprised at the sudden outburst Shigure had pulled away from Akito. The mental pressure lessened, and Akito opened his eyes again, staring at nothing. "That's... the first time it ever left me without..." Akito closed his eyes again, slowly, almost calmly. For a moment he seemed like he was loosing his consciousness, but he snapped his eyes open again. He instantly stood up, almost loosing his balance as he did, and hurried out of the door. "Don't follow me! Don't say a word to anyone about _anything_!" Then he sprinted away.

Back to his room. He had to go back into his room, before the monster... It was going to force his to sleep again. He had almost fallen asleep in the Cats room, with Shigure and Hatori in there. As he went back to his room, he bumped into a number of things, but dared not stop, he felt his mind being pulled further and further away from reality with each passing second. Eventually he found his room. It took him more than a few seconds to even find the handle, and once in his room, if was even more difficult locking the door, with his shaking hands, half-conscious mind, and constant risk and fear of collapsing right there, with the horrible voice voice ravaging through his mind.

"_**You're so useless, helpless, pathetic, an unwanted 'God'. Look at you screaming for help, like a mere child!**_"

Click. … Ba-tump. Those were the sound some just outside Akitos room would have heard. The sound of a door locking, and Akito collapsing a good two steps away from the door. That's how far he made it.

* * *

"Welcome home, Yuki-kun, Shigure-san." Tohru greeted cheerfully when the two said men entered their home. After greeting back, cheerfully by Shigure, and hardly audible by the weak and exhausted Yuki, Tohru asked how the meeting had been.

Shigure somehow managed to talk to her without having Kyo and Yuki around, telling her that the meeting was boring, and didn't really let anyone learn anything of important. "But Akito did tell me why he's screaming. He does not want me to tell you or anyone this, but know you're worried sick about it." Tohru listened intently. "He's having repeating nightmares where a monster hunts him. Obviously a different kind of nightmare than a child¨s average monster dream. I don't know what to think of it, but I know that you should not get all worried about it." he put a hand on Tohrus head. "I'm pretty certain that this is beyond you. So, just do everyone a favor and don't worry about it." Shigure went into his room, leaving a very worried Tohru thinking hard.

She figured, this might be beyond her. If she got involved it might worry everyone for nothing. But there was no way she could stand around, pretending nothing is happening when her friends were in trouble. She decided to herself to do everything in her power to help, even if it would end up becoming meaningless, and wasted help.

-End of chapter six-

There we are, Chapter six done ^.^ I broke my personal record of written words in this chapter.

I hope everyone liked it. Any questions or anything like that, just submit it in reviews I'll either answer with the next coming chapter or promise an answer for later.

Reviews works as motivation for me ^.^ Please click that review button, thank you ^.^


	8. Chapter 7

Hi there here is chapter seven ^.^ It's so long! I actually considered splitting it to two chapters, but decided against it.

Thanks for the reviews, it really made me happy to get three within 24 hours of posting the last chapter. So thank you Heihachi-Katayama, DragonQ and Ferris Ulf

Heihachi-Katayama: you seem to have misunderstood that Hatori was already feeling weak in last chapter, explaining his passiveness during Akitos 'confession'. I guess I forgot to make that clear.

Anyway, chapter seven is here now, I hope you'll all enjoy it :D

**Chapter seven: Close calls**

"I'm sorry, but Akito-sama won't let anyone in these days."

"I understand. I'm sorry for interrupting." Tohru sighed and walked away from the entrance to the main Sohma household. She was thinking really hardly. Would it be too rude of her to go in through the secret entrance Momo had showed her?

'_Should I simply stay out of all this anyway? Can I even do anything? Is all this really out of my hands, because I'm not in the Zodiac?_' Tohru had asked herself those three question many, many times this last week. She had only found the answer for the first question. The answer was clear though; No. She was not going to stay out of this. Her friends were involved, so she had to at least try to do something. At current time, talking to Akito-san seemed the only thing she could possibly do. Talking to Akito-san was something she was very hesitant to do. She knew he was very quick to anger, and very unlikely to share anything with her, but now it seemed her only remaining option. One week and a day ago, she had been told by Shigure-san that the same monster was haunting Akito-san night after night. Two days later, monday, Momiji-kun had told her that Akito had screamed in the evening. The following two days made it obvious that Akito-sans screaming was becoming irregular, and happened much more often now. Two to three times per 24 hours. Tohru tried many times, but knew she could net even begin to imagine how awful Akito-san must be feeling. Really really awful. Even trying to imagine it made her terribly frightened. She knew Akito-san would feel like that too, only much, much worse.

Tohru found the secret entrance. From there she would find Momiji-kuns house and ask him for directions to Akito-sans room. As little as she liked to trouble Momiji-kun, Tohru knew it would be better than looking around randomly for him. Momiji-kun had helped her with something like this before. He would likely help her again. Tohru was so happy and grateful to have such a good and understanding friend.

* * *

Back then... It was so close to having a really bad outcome. Much too close. Akito sighed thinking back to the afternoon two days back. Back when Akito had been haunted by the monster in the afternoon, something which was not that unusual anymore. The monster could haunt him at any time of the day now. Because of this Akito hardly ever left his room now. He didn't even leave his room to eat anymore, and only ate when he had a maid to bring food to his room. Or when one happened to ask if she was to bring him something, because he hadn't eaten in a while. Akito forgot to eat much of the time, so that was usually what happened.

That afternoon... Akito had been out of his room to eat late lunch or early dinner. He had hardly finished his meal before the monsters words filled his mind again. With it came the dizzy feeling if being forced into his mind, the place where thoughts, dreams and nightmares reigned. Mostly nightmares for Akito. He had left the room where he had eaten immediately, hurrying back to his own room. But it had not been close enough. He had not been able to find his way back in time, being in that half-conscious state. It was difficult enough to even try and walk steady like this, even more so when he was in a hurry. But he hadn't wanted to let anyone know he was about to have another of his nightmares. Trying to keep a straight face, walking steadily, without falling or bumping into things, and finding his way back was too much for him at once.

Even leaving his room had been a mistake in the first place. A big mistake. Akito had realized that when suddenly had lost sense of where he had been. He had been standing in his own home, not knowing where he was. He had left the only place where he felt even somewhat safe: his room. And his punishment for that mistake had been to collapse some unknown place in the house, knowing he was being haunted by the worst being ever: the monster of his nightmares.

_He had been running through the cracked, gray, lifeless and broken place again, trying desperately to get away this time. For once get out of the nightmare without being devoured. Or even better; wake up before the monster even came to him. First thing he had done when he was in the beginning-to-be-well-known place was to look around; he had been here enough time to start recognizing one larger crack from another. That time he had tried running in _that_ direction, he hadn't been over there yet. He might find something... Maybe this time he would have been so lucky as to find something, anything to help him get away from the monster. This time maybe... though probably not._

_It hadn't been long before he saw the monster again, floating, flying, blowing whatever it did! Coming to terrorize him like it always did. And he wanted to get away! That's when he had started running in blind panic, just wanting to get as far away as possible. Akito just wanted to get far away, the further the better. Evey additional second he could stay away from the monster, too far away to hear it's terrible words, the horrible laughter, every second he could be away from the possibility of being eaten again, they would be like a blessing. But the monster had caught up with him of course! The terrible being had laughed at his useless attempt at getting away, each '**ha**' sound, broken the ground he was running over a little more, making it all the more exhausting, difficult and useless. The laughter had knocked him over several times. It had been difficult to get up, and running again, every time he fell it only got worse! Worst when the ground was no more than dust. He felt as though he could not breathe once he had fallen into the dust, the dust had been blocking his throat and made his lungs feel like they were burning. He had also been sinking. Sinking! Even if he had decided to just give up, and hear those awful words again, he couldn't have stayed in any one place, he'd fall into the dust ground, it'd pull him down to whatever was underneath it. The ground was as hungry as the monster, wanting to eat him, devour him, kill him, but it was just as awful as the monster too; it preferred to draw out his late, make it much too obvious how helpless he was. He was utterly completely helpless!_

_Pure panic. That was the one thing that had gotten Akito running again. The only thing that had kept him from falling a pit of nothingness, his panic had kept him from letting this nightmare end quickly. He had been so stupid! The monster rubbed it in his face when he started running again how stupid he had been to not just let it be over quickly! Or maybe he preferred to be slowly harmed even more? He was so useless!_

_Akito had been running so blindly, desperately, he had not realized where he was going, he had been much too busy just getting away from the dark monstrous being. Even more so ever since it had been close enough for the words to reach him._

"_**There is no point in running, you have no escape from me! Everything you ever do is useless! Useless! Give it up!**__"_

_Akito had been tempted, very tempted, to just give in to the rumbling noisy voice, just stopping, and falling to the ground, which was at this place rocky again. His frail body just couldn't take anymore of this! The burning, the exhaust, the words, it had made him feel like there was indeed no point in even trying to get away. He wasn't getting away anyway! The monster had him! It haunted him! It would never stop! Never! It was impossible to get away. Akito had begun slowing a bit, causing the monster following him to laugh out loud as it always did when Akito was in pain, when he saw where he was; close to the edge of this gray cracked broken place. He had been filled with just enough hope, the tiniest bit of hope had been enough, to ignore the pain from his exhausted limbs, his burning lungs, which burned worse with every breath he took. The tiny part of Akito that had hoped that there might be something there, anything at all, that could be of some salvation from these nightmares, had made him keep going, running over to the edge, to see what was down there. He was begging some unknown force out there for there to be something._

_Once at the edge, he had looked down and seen... nothing! He had stared down into absolutely nothing. He could see the ground go down far, but all he could see down there was black. Jumping would have been suicide! So Akito had been standing with suicide in front of him, and the monster of his nightmares behind him. And he had been unable to face either. He then lost what remained of energy, and collapsed, completely unable to move, so worn out had he been. He had been in so much pain, mentally and physically._

_Completely unable to move, hardly able to breathe, and in much too much pain to even scream, he had been at the monsters non-existent mercy. The fall was only two steps ahead of him... but he couldn't move! He had been too exhausted!_

"_**So useless, I am indeed clueless as to why you even exist pathetic 'God'. You should not exist! You are doing no good for anyone! No one wants you 'God', you're completely useless, good for nothing! Completely nothing!**"_

_Akito had wanted to scream, desperate to do so even, trying to shut out the noise of the much too loud, disturbing voice by overpowering it with his own. But he couldn't. But when he could hardly breathe for the burning. The burning! The burning was too much!_

"_**Your time is nearly up God of Uselessness! I will have all that is yours soon enough! I'm not letting you forget this, like you have forgotten everything else.**"_

_Suddenly a sense of something strongly gripping onto Akitos shoulders had come out of nowhere! Nothing touched him, but he could still feel it holding tightly onto his shoulders. He had reacted by instantly thrashing about trying to get out of the grip that was holding onto him, ignoring his exhaust and pain for a few moments. The result was that it only got worse! Something was holding onto him, not onto his shoulders anymore, different places on him, trying to hinder his movements, he had only began fighting harder against it, as much as he could. His sight had disappeared!_

_He had managed ignore even the burning for a few moments to shout; _"Let go! Leave me alone, let me go! Let go!" _He gasped for air, intensifying the internal burning by a hundred, so it felt. He could see nothing! Not the monster, not the dark overclouded sky, not the black pit underneath him, or the edge he should have leapt over, just getting all this over with when he had had the chance! Never having to experience all this horror again! He should have ended it!_

_He still heard the words: "**Your End will come to you soon, pathetic 'God', you shall have nothing!**" _

"Akito, wake up!"

Kureno had passed by randomly, to find that Akito had collapsed on the floor, and was clearly having nightmares again. He was sweating, tense and had troubled breathing. Kureno had grabbed Akitos shoulders firmly, about to try waking him up, when Akito had began thrashing wildly, forcing Kureno to try and stop Akito from moving completely, so he wouldn't end up damaging himself, while trying to wake him up. Akito had shouted at him, then gasped like he had been underwater for too long, while still fighting to get out of Kurenos grasp. Akitos eyes had opened, but he didn't calm down. Indeed the eyes were open, Akito was awake, but he was still trapped in his nightmare. His eyes didn't react to anything around him. It took minutes before Akito finally seemed to wake up. The first thing he did was to shove Kureno as hardly away from him as possible, making a scared outburst. Then he looked around. It wasn't 'till then he had realized he was out of the nightmare, away from the monster. Then he had clung to Kureno, both in apology and for comfort, he was desperate to feel safe. Kureno had done his best to comfort Akito, while taking him back to his room.

Akito felt a small chill go down his spine at the memory of how close he had been to screaming out in some random place in the house, where anyone could have found him. That would have been awful. Especially if he had been unable to keep himself from crying in front of those people, when he finally woke up. It'd probably have been some of those maids. He really hated those stupid and much too curious maids.

Akito had been hanging out of his window, as relaxed as could possibly be, for a while now. He took in the sight of the tranquil gardens, longingly thinking '_If only I could feel a tiny bit of that tranquility..._'

Peace within was something Akito had hardly ever known. He longed for it so much. Now more than ever.

His mind traced over the last words he had heard from the monster that afternoon... '_Your End come to you soon.._.' Akito almost hoped it would. He was kinda starting to hope the the monster would just put an end to it all. All of it.

"If that monster doesn't kill me, this stress will..." he mumbled to himself. The monster really had stressed him up more than anything else ever had. The only thing he could think of that might possibly have stressed him up as much as this was back when Kurenos bond to him had broken, many years ago. He had felt so broken, it had almost torn his world apart. This monster was making him sick and near suicidal.  
When the bond broke it was a short time of extreme shock. Lasting only few days as shock, but effecting his life in ways he had never guessed.  
This monster was extreme fear over a longer period of time. How long now? 20 days since the first scream. No wonder his throat was getting sore. At current time, eight of his Zodiac was weak and sickly. Ritsu would be next. Tomorrow probably.

That broken bond... the shock.. the worst experience of Akitos life! He felt like he was losing a great part of his life back then. He remembered that feeling awfully well. The feeling that a great part of what had kept him alive suddenly snapped and become nothing. Nothing, absolutely nothing ever since then, even including the monster and all it had done to him, had gotten near how terrible that had felt. Though the monster was starting to get close. It made him feel partly suicidal, while the broken bond had partly killed him. Akito had considered dying might be able to release him from the haunting of the monster, but he doubted it. It had him! He was trapped under its power. His Juunishi was trapped under its power too. It had claimed many timed to be the cause of the weakening of his Zodiac.

Akito drew a long hopeless sigh and closed his eyes for a short moment before taking a glance into his room, looking for something more relaxing to think about. His eyes caught the two plants he had in his room at current time. Akito liked plants. They didn't run. They didn't talk. They couldn't fight against him if he wasn't happy. And they were, like Akito felt himself as these days; helpless. Plants was even more dependent on their surroundings than Akito.

* * *

Tohru had found the place she was looking for; Akito-sans room. Thanks to Momiji-kun she found the place easily. When she had asked Momiji-kun for direction he had insisted on coming with her to protect her if Akito should get mad. Tohru didn't want that. She knew very well that when Akito-san was mad, he would hurt people around him. And it would make her feel terrible about herself if Momiji-kun got hurt because of her. But he had insisted. He was with her. He had even apologized ahead of time if anything should go wrong she got hurt, because of the condition he was in. Another reason Tohru saw for him to have to stay. He still insisted to be there.

So, there they were. Tohru requested that Momiji-kun stayed a little back, Akito-san might find it difficult to talk to both of them rather than only one.

"Be careful, 'kay?" he said when he agreed. Tohru promised to be careful, and went over to talk to Akito-san. Akito-san was hanging out from his window, wearing the same kimono as he had when Tohru had first seen him. That one or one similar to that one. This felt almost like it was the same moment.

"Akito-san?" Akito looked for the person who had asked for him, finding it to be a person he had not hoped to see just when he was starting to relax. _That girl_. Tohru Honda. The person who had started making his Zodiac more distant to him. The person he hated second most in this world. What was _she_ here for? Akito shot a mean glare at her.

"Tohru Honda," He said, not bothering formalities of either -san or -kun. "what do you want?" The girl looked down like she was embarrassed to disturb him.

"I was wondering if... If you know anything about what is weakening the Zodiac. If you would tell me." Tohru said shyly, carefully, trying her best not to anger him.

"Why should I ever tell you? You have nothing to do with this. Stay out of it!" There was no need to let her know anything. The less she knew the better. That meant there was higher chance of her just leaving Akito and his Juunishi alone.

"My friends, Akito-san... They're involved. So I want to know everything I can, so I can help them the best I can. Please, if there is anything at all you know... I really want to know about it too." Stupid girl. Obviously didn't even get it when Akito told her directly to stay out.

"Didn't you hear me just now? Stay out of this! This has nothing to do with you. Just stay out of this and live happily in your own little world of fairytales, unaware of the darkness all around you, as you should! That's what's best for everyone." He said dismissively, hoping she would just away, before his mood became too dark. He had started to realize that when he was in his darkest moods, the monster was most likely to start speaking.

"I know you're telling me to stay out of this... everybody is, actually. But I just can't. Not when people I love are involved. Then I simply can't. I want to help them. I want to help everyone."

"There is nothing you can do! Things will be terrible enough without you here! We don't need you around to make matters worse! They will be much worse! Having you around will only make them even worse than much worse! For the last time, _stay out of this!_" the situation was becoming dangerous. Tohru was aware of this, and so was Momiji, hiding nearby. Akitos tones was making it clear he was losing his remaining patience.

"Akito-san, all I want is to help you. All of you. You too, Akito-san! I want to help everyone so they can feel good again. I don't care if I can't do anything it'll make no sense if I don't even try! Akito-san, please... please let me help my friends. And let me help you too. I really want to help you too Akito-san, to avoid having nightmares every-" Momiji saw it, but couldn't react in time. He simply couldn't. It was impossible because of his weakened state. Akito had grabbed one of the two plants standing in the window, and threw it at Tohru. He missed, and the pot it was in crushed against a tree behind Tohru.

"_Go away! The next one won't miss!_" he hissed at her.

Tohru bowed. "I'm sorry. I hope you'll be well." Akito watched her leave. Then he closed his window, and stood by himself inside his room, clenching his fists so tightly it hurt. '_Damn that Dog! I never should have trusted him! Why am I being so stupid I should know better!_' With a furious and frustrated shout Akito grabbed the other plant and threw it across the room, this ones pot didn't just crush, it splintered against the wall.

"Damn it..! Damn it!"

* * *

Someone was knocking the door to Kaguras house. She went to answer it. When she opened she was surprised to see Akito standing there.

"It's happened to you too now, hasn't it?" Akito asked her instantly. "You grew weak today too, didn't you?" As if he needed an answer. It was clear to see on her.

"Yes, Akito, I'm not feeling well. Just like everyone else now." She answered. Akito then turned around and began walking back to his own room. He had gotten what he wanted from out here. Kagura was sick now too. That was the last of them. All of them was weak and sickly now. So, what was to happen next? There was no one next in line to weaken.

Every Juunishi was weak now; Yuki, Hatsuharu, Kisa, Momiji, Hatori, Ayame, Isuzu, Hiro, Ritsu, Shigure, Kagura and Kyo. Akito hated it! He hated that gap! Where was Kureno? He had not gotten sick or weak at all. Akito hated it! Another reminder of the bond he and Kureno no longer shared.

"Why..? Why does it have to be like this?" Akito asked himself, knowing no one was around. He couldn't take more of this. He couldn't take any more pain! Even though Kureno pretended, kept up an impressive charade, Akito could never feel like they were together the way they _should_ be. Akito felt an awful sense of loneliness whenever he had Kureno around. He could not feel their bond anymore, and _it made him feel so lonely!_

Loneliness... Akitos greatest fear, and most well-known emotion. Even worse after the monster had made him stay all alone at all times.

Who knows what that monster was doing to his Zodiac? It could be anything terrible. Absolutely terrible, Akito just knew it was going to be. He'd known ever since he woke up screaming the third time. That was when he'd first felt the feeling that something terrible was certain to happen soon. He had gotten much more aware of this feeling since then. Even though he had not had a nightmare just now, he felt it that time more then ever.

His fear made him feel sick. He stopped walking, leaning onto a tree. All his fears, his weak health, messed-up sleep pattern of nightmares which gave his body no chance to rest, had made him react like this several timed before. He placed an arm over his gut. '_Oh no, not this again._'

Once Akito was starting to feel good enough to stand and walk again he resumed his walk back to his room, empty-minded. He wasn't thinking about anything, he just felt sick. He felt burning hot on his skin, and cold as ice under it, so weak he felt like he was about to collapse not because of the nightmares, and unable to think properly. Shortly after he had gone inside again a young maid came over to him.

"Akito-sama are you alright? You look very pale..." she said. Akito thought she even sounded sincerely concerned. She seemed so too. Akito stopped walking and leave tiredly against a wall.

"I threw up again." he answered. He was shaking weakly from lack of energy that his body just couldn't get as long he could not rest, or keep food inside him for long enough to digested properly. The maid stood there, wanting to say something, but was afraid to anger the head of the family. "What are you standing there for? Go clean up!" She didn't actually want to go... not because of laziness, but because of worry for the head pf the family. But she knew her place. She had to do what he said. So she bowed and walked away.

Akito moved on on his own, getting back to his room without any problems.

'_If there's anyone left to weaken now, it's only me. And I'm sick enough as it is! If I get any weaker, I'll probably die!_'

-End of chapter seven-

Here we have it, chapter seven. Thank you very much for reading ^.^ Please review. Me like reviews ^.^

If there are any questions about anything in my story, please just ask them in your reviews, and I'll either give you an answer, or promise you one for later.

Now, I'd like a little help from my readers. I need certain 'elements' (which it actually isn't but it's the best name I have for it), and I already have decided on a number of them, but if you have any suggestions I'll appreciate it very much. If you can make up elements along the lines of death, conflict, dimension, captivity, and submit them in reviews I'll take them into consideration for my story further on. Remember it has to be either neutral or negative(for reasons you will come to understand later). Thank you very much.

Also about this chapters length, I hope it'll make up for the length of the next chapter(which will be short).

I also learned something important while working on this chapter: never try to force myself into my writing mood. I had to rewrite a good deal of this chapter because of doing so, and ended up with half-bad results. I just hope that this is good ^.^

Chapter eight will be out soon. ^.^


	9. Chapter 8

And here is my very short chapter eight. ^.^ I hope you'll all like this one too.

Thanks to DragonQ and Heihachi-Katayama for reviewing again ^.^

Ferris Ulf: Yes, you're right, and I'm quite aware that I'm just repeating myself there... I should have cut that nightmare shorter. Thank you very much for the advice ^.^ I'll try avoid something like in the future chapters.

Now, please enjoy my short chapter 8.

**Chapter eight Time's up**

_Akito was asleep. He knew he was sleeping, or at least had fallen asleep on his own tonight. But this was not the nightmare he knew. All be saw was black. He knew where he was, and everything around him was perfect black. Maybe for once, he was not going to have a nightmare?_

Everyone was sleeping in the main Sohma houses... almost. Hatori couldn't find sleep tonight, so he was making time pass by reading a book.  
Far away, in the Sohma Onsen, Ritsu too had had too much trouble sleeping and was up. He spend his time currently by walking around.

_The monster appeared in the blackness. Akito was only aware of where he himself was, and where the monster was now. That settled it; he _was_ having a nightmare. Without anything other than Akito, the monster and blackness, there was nowhere to run, no chance of hiding or escaping, making it even worse. Akito knew what was coming now. He would just take it this time. He had done that a few times before; just taking the words. Terrible, true words spoken from a monster that was nothing physical._

"_**The time is up! You're all effected now. All this time you've had and still... You didn't even try to remember. Pathetic 'God'... It really begins now.**"_

And Akito opened his eyes. His room... Indeed his room. He was in his room, this was not part of a nightmare... strange. He had woken up calmly. Suddenly but still... Akito felt hot, but not sick and weak like he usually did when he woke up. The monster... it had not hunted him, spoken terrible words or devoured him. What the..? Akito took a deep breath. Why the monster hadn't haunted him tonight didn't matter. What mattered was that it didn't.

Akito looked for a moment at the new plants to had gotten in there. '_It's still dark... I wonder what time it is..._' He took a look at his watch when his eyes had gotten enough used to the darkness to do so. 3:27 am. He felt like he should do something... just something to make his time pass.

"Maybe some air from the 'outside' would do me good." Akito thought out loud. Now would be a good time to go 'outside', most people would be asleep now. Dressing in black as he always did when he went outside, he walked out of his room, and headed towards the entrance to the main Sohma household, to go 'outside' on his own for the first time in... as long as he could remember. He'd have to be careful not to get lost out there, he thought as he was about to go out. He hesitated for a moment. Wondered if it was a good idea... And then went out.

Akito had no idea what he was doing out there actually... The world outside was ugly. The gardens surrounding the main house was much nicer. What was he out here for anyway? Maybe a change of air? He didn't really know. And he realized he didn't care. He was just out here because he had felt like going outside for once. He'd be back before everyone woke up anyway. Nobody would have to know about his random walk outside. He went another corner, and kept walking up along the street.

At this time, Ritsu and Hatori, both still up, felt an odd calling feeling inside them. Something seemed to call them. Not like they heard their names, something was just... calling. Hatori looked up from his book, and Ritsu stopped walking. He was holding a vase with flowers in it, he had been giving the flowers new water, but that was forgotten now. Hatori and Ritsu stared up at the ceiling of whichever place they were. This strange, calling feeling... what was it?

Akito was half-way down a street, deciding it was about time to go back to the main houses when a feeling of dizziness suddenly seemed to come out of nowhere. That was bad! He was outside! If he was about to collapse he could not possibly make it back in time. How would random people react to him screaming? He hadn't thought the monster would make him collapse after such a short span of time. He began going back much faster then he'd been walking randomly. He'd kept good track of exactly where he had walked, so he knew where to go. But it was no use. He was simply much too far away! He knew he was.

Hatori and Ritsu both felt some strange abstract sense of being pulled away... Ritsu would call it to feel like his soul was being pulled out of his own body. And with that feeling occupying their minds, their visions turned black.

Akito was confused. The dizziness was less aggressive, he heard no voice... it simply felt different. He began to wonder if it really was the monster along the way back. It didn't seem like it. Not at all. Maybe a little... Maybe the smaller monster he had seen on occasion in his nightmares.

Suddenly, much too suddenly, his mind made a strange snap. Akito fell unconscious in the middle if the street, looking like no more than a corpse to anyone who might have looked out their window and seen him then.

-Chapter eight end-

Well short chapter eight. Now this is where things will really start becoming difficult for me to write. I'll have to work hard on the future chapters.

Reviews always welcome. No, that's not right... they're very appreciated ^.^

Also I want to inform you that Tohru will likely appear less from this point on; the actual reason she's the second main is because there was no better to put there.

I'll still be taking in ideas of 'elements', if you should have some suggestions. I'll seriously consider suggestion. But if you have none dot worry about it, I have those I need, but I'm still willing to change those I have for a better suggestion. ^.^

And of course, any questions, go ahead and ask ^.^


	10. Chapter 9

I am very aware that I have not updated this story for a whole year.

As for the long, detailed explanation for why I have not updated for so long, which you all deserve, well... I don't have one. My life has not been busy or troublesome(much), I guess I can say I was distracted at best. That's no excuse, I know, I know.

Anyway, a very special thanks to those who put my story on Story Alert, while I was inactive. You're the reason this is coming out now.

So, I hope everyone will enjoy this very important chapter which I should have posted long ago.

Chapter 9 ^.^

**Chapter nine That's no monster...**

Akito opened his eyes, standing in a place he did not recognize. He looked around, his mind still clearing little by little from... from what? Had he been sleeping? What had happened? Dizziness... He remembered now. He had woken up from a... not a nightmare... It hadn't really been a nightmare. The monster had just told him the time was up. Then to clear his mind, and just do _something_ he had begun walking around 'outside'... he'd suddenly gotten dizzy and collapsed. So, was this a nightmare? It felt different.

Akito looked to the sky. The sky was the same. Dark and heavily overclouded. But everything around him was not. The ground was dark, and dying, but not gray and broken. And there was plants, sickly-looking, half-withered plants was randomly standing all around him. He was probably in some kind of forest. It was quite open, but still there was enough vegetation for him to not be able to see far around him. He was very confused. This wasn't his nightmare. Or at least not one he knew. But, then again, this wasn't anything he'd ever known.

'_Where am I?_'

* * *

"What the Hell???" Kyo had spoken out loud for everyone in the area with that shout. "Where is this place? And why are we all transformed?!?"

No one could answer to either of the two questions. Everyone was there. The entire Zodiac. Most of them had practically just been woken up. Waking up, but feeling as though they had been awake for a few hours was confusing in itself. Even more so, when they found they were all transformed to their animal forms, and in a completely unknown place, which is _never_ a good place to wake up. They seemed to be at the edge of a sickly twisted forest. Everyone looked around themselves slowly, puzzled, trying to make just a little sense out of this.

"Hurray!" Momiji suddenly shouted, breaking the confused silence. "I'm feeling all well again!"

"So do I..." Yuki said, even more puzzled now. Now that everyone thought about it, it was true. They were back to feeling normal. Which might explain why it took several seconds for anyone to notice.

"Alright, does anyone have the slightest idea about what's going on?" Hiro asked, not expecting much. Silence was the only sound for a while.

"Uhm, well..." Ritsu began, seeming to try and hide behind the flowervase. For home reason he still had that, while his clothes were gone. Nobodies clothes were in sight, the only object any of them had was Ritsus flowervase, and a book lying randomly on the ground. "Well, I... I felt a strange feeling just before I got here... like something was calling me from far away. And, uh, also, like something was pulling me away, and then... suddenly here I was." No one said anything for a while.

"Well... That doesn't help us much, but-" Hiro started.

"**NOOO! I'M SORRYYYY!!!**" … Ritsu was panicking again. "**I'm sorry for saying something so useless! I'm sorry, I'm sorry Hiro-san, for wasting you precious time with my worthless words! I'll apologize! I'm sorry, I'm SORRYYY!!!**"'Hiro had already given up any attempt at shutting him up. It would be no use right now, Ritsus nerves was probably a wreck from being in this quite frightening place. Or maybe it was because his clothes weren't there, so he couldn't take the bit of comfort he usually found in girls clothes... or maybe it was just both.

In the meantime Kisa, having believed the book that was lying in the ground to be Shigures, had picked it up to give it to him... And found a tiny seahorse lying underneath it. She made a frightened squeak in an attempt to say his name.

Fortunate was it that this was enough to catch everyones attention in spite of the situation, and Ritsus panicked shouting. How long had Hatori been lying there _out of water_? Ritsu panicked even more, but still had enough mind left to hurry over, grab Hatori, run back to the flowervase, pull out the flowers and drop Hatori into the vase. All in less than 5 seconds. Hatori spend a few moments to gather himself in the water, but then looked out of the glass vase to find that everyone was there, indeed, in some unknown place, as he'd heard them say from underneath the book.

"Ha-Hatori-niisan, are you alright?!?" Ritsu squealed, shaking madly for several reasons.

"Yes, but I would prefer not to be forgotten out of water again." he said calmly. Ritsu, of course, took all the blame for himself. There was several times Hatori considered the limits of how high a male voice could go to have been breached.

Everyone silenced though, at the sound of a well-known voice. "Ritsu..?"

* * *

Akito had been trying to decide for himself whether this was a nightmare or not, when he had heard a very familiar sound. All too familiar. This couldn't be true. Surely, it was just his imagination... Well that's what Akito would have thought if the sound had been momentary. But it wasn't. So it had to be...

'_Is Ritsu _here_? Well he'd better not! I don't want any of them having nightmares too!_' With that thought in mind, Akito followed the sound, hoping dearly that Ritsu was not really here too. Or anyone else for that matter. These nightmares was awful! His Juunishi shouldn't suffer them too. If that monster had..!

His fears was confirmed when he found them all. All of them. Every one of his Juunishi. Seeing them here made him ignore everything else; the dark sky, the sick plants, everything around him. He didn't even see the lack of cracks in the ground, or the the colossal rising of rocks somewhere far away to his left that could best be describes as a small mountain; things that would have been otherwise impossible to miss.

"Ritsu..? Shigure? A-All of you... what you doing here?" _Here!_ In his nightmares! In the monsters domain! Was the monster going to haunt them too now? Or maybe... the smaller one was after them, and the big monster would keep haunting Akito. Or maybe the other way around? Akito had no idea. He was clueless.

"Akito, you're here too." Always cheerful Momiji said. Akito might know something about this. Momiji hoped he did.

"What are you doing here?" Akito repeated, this time with a bit more power in his voice.

"We don't know. I just woke up, and here I was. Ritsu says he heard someone calling him before this happened. I didn't. I was asleep." Haru said with his usual mindless tone.

"No. No, it was more like a feeling..." As Ritsu began explaining Akito stopped listening. He just tried to figure out what the heck all this was. Forcing himself to focus was difficult though; Ayame was starting to get over his initial shock, and began talking. Akito glared at the silvery Snake for a moment. Ayame was so damned obvious! Impossible to ignore. As though that wasn't enough, everyone else began to speak, trying to figure everything out the best they could.

He tried focusing on what might have happened... So many things had been unusual: The sudden dizziness had been unusual, this place was unusual, the unpleasant dream he had before this one was unusual, the fact the entire Zodiac was here was unusual, and the fact that the monster was nowhere in visual, or hearing range was unusual. Akito knew as much as this was connected, likely to what the monster had said to him before. '**The time's up!**' Surely the monster had said '**You're all affected now.**'... That meant something. But what? Akito wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Akito?" Shigure snapped Akito out of his thoughts, back to the noise that the Zodiac always made. Even in a situation like this. "Are you alright?" Shigure asked.

"I was just thinking..." Akito sighed heavily, exhausted with it all suddenly. He places a hand on his face. At least he wasn't alone. Though it would have been better if he was.

"About your nightmares?" Shigure asked quietly for Akitos sake. He knew Akito didn't want a lot of attention on him right now.

"Yes, a little..." Akito thought for a short time again. "I don't kno-" Akito stopped just as sudden as a toy car hitting the wall. No. He'd _frozen_. He'd frozen when he'd glanced to his left. His face changed quickly from being exhausted, to absolutely horrified. Shigure could hear his breathing become much more unstable, and see him shiver badly.

Shigure quickly looked in the same direction as Akitos wide opened eyes had locked. Seeing nothing special he turned his attention back to Akito.

"Akito what's the matter?" He asked. He caught many Juunishis attention when he did because of the seriousness in his voice. They soon all saw how terrified Akito had suddenly become. He was struggling to speak, only managing to utter frightened, gasping attempts at words, pointing towards the small mountain with a shaking hand. "Akito, what's the matter?" Shigure repeated.

"The-the... It's co-... _There_. The monster it's-" Akito was clearly panicking. But he'd mentioned the monster. Shigure remembered very well how frightened Akito had been at the _memory_ of it, and now he was _seeing_ it. But when Shigure looked again, there was nothing. As before. "We-we have to run, o-or-" Akito stammered before Shigure cut him off.

"Akito. There's nothing there." He said carefully, hoping the certainty in his voice would calm Akito.

"What do you... It's right there! It-It's coming for us, we have to run!" Akito stared around at his Zodiac, pointing out the monster that had been approaching them from the mountain over there. None of them seemed very frightened, nor convinced. Why? Why wouldn't they listen to him? Surely they would not want to be around that awful being! It was coming over to them, and it was coming fast! If they didn't run-

"Really, Akito, there's nothing." Yuki said. Realization then hit Akito; _He was the only one who could see it!_ His Zodiac was blind to the monster! They couldn't see the dark unformly figure approaching them. They couldn't see it! Of course they wouldn't believe him!

Akito stared back at the monster, scared even more at how much closer it already was. He took a few steps back, away from it, wanting to run, but felt stunned at the presence of his Zodiac. He couldn't bring himself to run. He just couldn't! He couldn't leave them, at the risk of them becoming the monsters new targets! He couldn't leave his Zodiac! He needed them! He had to get away! But he couldn't leave them... he had to make them run with him!

"Just _run_! It's coming..! It'll- We can't- We can't stay... just _run!_" Akito desperately shouted at them all. No one moved. Not an inch. They were just looking uncertain among themselves.

Why wouldn't they listen! Why couldn't they listen just for _once_! It was so close! The monster was too close, if it spoke, he'd be able to hear it now. And it was still coming closer and closer..! Why were they all trying to calm him? Why were they just staring in the direction of the monster with their mindless faces! Why wouldn't they just do what he said!?! '_Damn it! Damn it!!!_'

Akitos thoughts completely froze when Rin suddenly made a shocked outburst, followed quickly be everybody else. The entire Zodiac stared wide eyed, taking as few steps back, shocked, as a large, dark, evilly chuckling formless being appeared out of nowhere. Dark, large and indescribable! Completely indescribable!

'_Unbelievable!_' Hatori thought when he saw it. He truly appreciated that Ritsu was not still holding the glass vase. This would have made him drop it.

"Wh-Wha-WHAT THE HELL IS **THAT!?!**" Kyo shouted, the fur on his back standing straight up. Shigure knew what this was. '_No wonder Akito is very frightened._' This was the monster of Akitos nightmares. Not something anyone'd want to ever dream about.

The monster spoke, giving everybody another frightening surprise; it had no voice! It spoke voicelessly straight into the mind. The voice seemed so loud it overpowered all thoughts.

"_**Here they all are, at last! At last!**_" Kisa couldn't help herself; she screamed at the power of the voice. "_**Pathetic 'God'... You're **_**all**_** helpless now!**_"

"No! NOO!" Akito screamed, still wishing to run, and still finding he couldn't. He couldn't run away from his Zodiac, leaving them under the nonexistent mercy of the monster. "Don't... Don't put them into this too! Don't put my Zodiac into my nightmares too!" The monster laughed at this outburst from Akito. It laughed as hysterically as Akito had ever heard it.

The monsters laughing made the ground crack. It made everyone feel as though they had just taken a hard physical blow, just without the pain; it made them feel weak, and breathless. And that's what Akito had been through for likely hours _every night for a month_. No wonder he screamed. Several felt like screaming that instant.

"_**This is not a dream!**_" It bellowed with its mind-numbing words. "_**Not this time. You are **_**here**_**!**_"

Something suddenly smashed into Akito from behind, knocking him forwards, a little further away from his Zodiac, closer to the monster, onto the hard, dying ground. "Ow..." he mumbled when he hit the ground, knocked back to his senses. And with that he knew what the monster had said was true. This was real!

He had fallen many times, been knocked over from the force that followed by the monsters terrible laugh, but it had never hurt.

He had been in pain during his nightmares, burning, stinging, throbbing pain, but it had never been a truly physical pain.

Now he had fallen onto the ground, and it had hurt. Exactly the way falling was supposed to hurt. No more, no less. The very same. _This was real_!

The monster was real! This place was real! Not just a some stupid nightmare anymore. This was real!

A paw suddenly stomped right in front of Akitos face, making him flinch. He looked up. The three-clawed paw belonged to a fox-like creature. That was all Akito could see without turning his head. He could see the golden fur, the brown stripes that ran across the neck, and in the mane. He could see the fox-like head, the fangs that stood out of the madly grinning mouth. The piercing blue eyes that looked down upon him with even more madness than the grin.

And he heard the amused voice that spoke. "He's right. This time it's not a dream!" The fox-like creature jumped over to the monsters side. Akito then saw the tails. It had a number of tails. Momiji had behind him made a quick count; nine. This creature was just like the popular creature from Japanese culture, the nine-tailed fox. And it stared maniacally at the Zodiac and their God.

Akito figured; this could well be the smaller of the monsters. The larger, worse one was still unformly, impossible to make out. He was stunned by all of this. By everything. It was too much for him at once! And yet still he longed to know more. To get to _understand_! He just wanted to understand it!

"What..." He began silently, then shrieked. "What are you? **You monster, **_**what are you?!?**_"

"_**Me... I am, as you are, a God!**_" Akitos eyes opened even further. "_**I am the God in Enduen!**_" This was unbelievable! "_**The only God!**_" This was impossible! "_**I am the God of Destruction!**_"

"_**IMPOSSIBLE!**_" Akito screamed back. The monster laughed again. Louder, wilder this time. Akito hardly took notice of this. It couldn't be! It couldn't be! Never! He was God! He was God of the Zodiac! There was no other Gods... He was God! He was the one special being that was God! Not this monster!

"_**I am a God! As is you... But you're no more then a helpless, stupid, useless, unwanted, pathetic, sorry **_**excuse**_** for one!**_"

"**No! No!**" This monster couldn't be a God! It couldn't, it couldn't! Akito was the God of the Zodiac!

"_**It's true. And, now that you know who I am... Ninetails, separate them!**_" In that moment, a terrible realization struck Akito. '_No! It can't!_'

Akito found that it made sense. Terrible sense. If the monster was a God like he... He'd been told this would happen from the very first nightmare. '**Yours shall be mine.**' the monster had said back then. It all made that terrible sense; The monster... the other God... _wanted to take his Zodiac away from him!_

The fox, Ninetails, grinned even more, raised one tail above the others, and uttered a single word: "Dimension."

Akito managed to look up to see the tail Ninetails had raised become a bright green glowing thing, flying directly towards him.

"**NOOO-**" Akitos scream was cut off just as abruptly as he disappeared. He had completely disappeared when the green light circled around him, returning then to Ninetails, becoming a tail again. Behind where Akito had been lying, stood his Zodiac, stunned by everything. There was no sign, not even an echo of Akitos scream, to prove that Akito had been there. Only the dust proved it.

Shigure was the first to get back to his senses. He shouted up at the God of Destruction. "What have you done to Akito? Where is he?"

"_**Far away! Out of your reach!**_" The God chuckled, and went a few meters backwards, disappearing the same way it had appeared.

Ninetails turned his side to them. He laughed to himself. "I do wonder, what will the God do without his Zodiac, Curse?" Another tail detatched itself, this one turning into a strongly purplish glowing something. It took a leap straight over the mentally paralyzed Zodiac, and straight back again. Seemingly nothing happened to no one. With all nine tails back in place the fox stood for a few seconds, observing them.

Then, with an arrogant smile, he said; "Welcome to Enduen." turned around, and ran off towards the massive rocky rising in an impressive speed.

No one could say a thing. No one could move. They were all too overwhelmed.

Akitos monster had been another God. A ninetailed fox had appeared, his name Ninetails, had made Akito disappear right in front of their eyes. And they realized that they were trapped in a foreign place named Enduen. Not any place on the planet Earth they knew.

-Chapter nine End-

Now, that is the direction this store has been planned to go from the very start. I hope I did not make it all too confusing.

Everything is planned to be revealed in later chapters, when/if I get them posted.

I can not say anything about when next update might be. I want to finish this story, that's all I can say.

Anyways, I'll greatly appreciate any reviews you feel I deserve... Thank you ^.^


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